In the complaint, the Girl Scouts said the Boy Scouts have no monopoly over such terms as “scouts” and “scouting” when it offers services to girls.

It also said the name change threatens to “marginalize” Girl Scouts activities and has already sown confusion, with families, schools and communities nationwide being told the organization no longer exists, or merged with the Boy Scouts.

“Only GSUSA has the right to use the Girl Scouts and Scouts trademarks with leadership development services for girls,” and the Boy Scouts infringements are “new and uniquely damaging to GSUSA,” the complaint said.

Having sabotaged themselves by diving into the flaming cauldron of the culture wars over sexual orientation, first alienating queer and allied scouts and families with bigoted policies, then driving away religious conservatives by backpedaling into basic tolerance of queer kids, the BSUSA now needs to drill a well into the core of healthy scouting still marshaled by the Girl Scouts to drain resources from its bounty.

GSA's structure, IMHO, is terrible and has no consistency. BSA at least has 'troops' that last, in some cases, over 100 years. GSA each 'troop' is created and dies once the scouts age out. At times it felt like an MLM organization that sells cookies. (My wife was a GS leader for 7 years, I was a BSA leader for 15 years.)

I'd love to see them work together and do what Canadian Scouting did. There are no boys or girls, there are just Scouts. Ok, Scouters.

GSA's structure, IMHO, is terrible and has no consistency. BSA at least has 'troops' that last, in some cases, over 100 years. GSA each 'troop' is created and dies once the scouts age out. At times it felt like an MLM organization that sells cookies. (My wife was a GS leader for 7 years, I was a BSA leader for 15 years.)

I'd love to see them work together and do what Canadian Scouting did. There are no boys or girls, there are just Scouts. Ok, Scouters.

I like the way Girl Scouts troops are designed. They are centered on the members and their specific goals, interests and age. Supported by adult volunteers, the girls create lead and own their experience, they don't just come and go from some pre-existing entity like Boy Scouts do.

BSA would also love to have GSUSA disappear and attempt to claim those millions of members as their own. Not gonna happen. Girl Scouts has decades of evidence about the power of girl-led leadership experiences and intends to continue offering that as only Girl Scouts can. Everyone who identifies as female can join Girl Scouts.

They now have a choice to instead join a program that was designed specifically for boys and is led almost exclusively by men at the national level, if that's what they want. But BSA cannot mislead people into thinking they are "Girl Scouts." That's what the lawsuit is about.

I'm not sure what the Boy Scouts can do. For 100 years, the separation by gender was the norm. I'm not endorsing this fact, merely observing it. Now, the Boy Scouts are decried for not including girls. So, they include girls. Then they are decried for infringing on Girl Scouts. And I can certainly see the girl scouts' concerns over their turf--a century of turf in its own right. Yet, how can Boy Scouts be expected to include girls in Scouting without using the words "girl" and "scout" together?

BSA already had a program that included girls and does not use the word Scouts: Venturing. They started this after being sued, by a girl.
Sea Scouts is also co-ed but it's such a small program that nobody confuses it with Girl Scouts.

I'm not sure who was calling for Boy Scouts to admit girls to the Boy Scout program. I was not hearing that before BSA made this change. They did it because of their dramatic decline in membership over recent years.

What Lemon said. BSA is trying to expand membership after they lost so many POed members through poor management and poor decision making. They're trying to do it by stealing from the girl scouts, which is a despicable strategy. Sadly, BSA management is an awful organization that has been rightly accused on various occasions of homophobia, racism, religious bigotry and siphoning off money to management's personal interests.

Also, although BSA has held steadfast to the "boys only" rule for decades despite criticism, it is one of the few national organizations remaining that has that rule. Many national scouting organizations went coed many years ago, including the original british scouting organizations.

"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." (1987) -- Carl Sagan

QuoteLemon Drop
BSA already had a program that included girls and does not use the word Scouts: Venturing. They started this after being sued, by a girl.
Sea Scouts is also co-ed but it's such a small program that nobody confuses it with Girl Scouts.

I'm not sure who was calling for Boy Scouts to admit girls to the Boy Scout program. I was not hearing that before BSA made this change. They did it because of their dramatic decline in membership over recent years.

The BS Explorers program also admits girls and young women.

The issue is branding. If the BS wants to recruit 'girls', they cannot use the words 'girl scouts (TM)'. No difference than some company that has a mouse as a product now, they cannot call it 'Mickey'.

QuoteLemon Drop
BSA already had a program that included girls and does not use the word Scouts: Venturing. They started this after being sued, by a girl.
Sea Scouts is also co-ed but it's such a small program that nobody confuses it with Girl Scouts.

I'm not sure who was calling for Boy Scouts to admit girls to the Boy Scout program. I was not hearing that before BSA made this change. They did it because of their dramatic decline in membership over recent years.

The BS Explorers program also admits girls and young women.

The issue is branding. If the BS wants to recruit 'girls', they cannot use the words 'girl scouts (TM)'. No difference than some company that has a mouse as a product now, they cannot call it 'Mickey'.

Exactly. Using "Girl Scouts," to describe any of their programs or members, which they are doing in some cases, violates the intellectual property of GSUSA.

Canada and most of the rest of the world have only one organization, which then have two divisions, one for boys (Boy Scouts) and one for girls (Girl Guides). I was a part of one such organization based on my ethnicity, we usually did things together with the girls during the weekly meetings, and our camp outs had one section of the camp for girls, one section of the camp for boys. Setting up camp, cooking, cleanup, sleeping was separate, but campfires and some activities were together.

The problem that I have with the Girl Scouts is about the same as what cbelt3 described. There is no consistency between the GSA "troops", they each have different themes and goals, and trying to find out what each does is near impossible. We wanted to get our daughter involved with the GSA, but had a hard time even locating a troop, and when we did find a local one, they were all about crafting and home-ec type of things. We wanted her to have the boy scout / international scout experience of camping, self-reliance, team building, etc. All that Baden-Powell espoused when setting up the Scouting movement.

I think the current GSA movement has veered so far away from Baden-Powell's original vision that they even shouldn't be called Girl Scouts.

QuoteSam3
Canada and most of the rest of the world have only one organization, which then have two divisions, one for boys (Boy Scouts) and one for girls (Girl Guides). I was a part of one such organization based on my ethnicity, we usually did things together with the girls during the weekly meetings, and our camp outs had one section of the camp for girls, one section of the camp for boys. Setting up camp, cooking, cleanup, sleeping was separate, but campfires and some activities were together.

The problem that I have with the Girl Scouts is about the same as what cbelt3 described. There is no consistency between the GSA "troops", they each have different themes and goals, and trying to find out what each does is near impossible. We wanted to get our daughter involved with the GSA, but had a hard time even locating a troop, and when we did find a local one, they were all about crafting and home-ec type of things. We wanted her to have the boy scout / international scout experience of camping, self-reliance, team building, etc. All that Baden-Powell espoused when setting up the Scouting movement.

I think the current GSA movement has veered so far away from Baden-Powell's original vision that they even shouldn't be called Girl Scouts.

Girl Scout troops are led entirely by volunteers from the community, most typically parents of the girls. When you couldn't find a troop that met your daughter's interests did you offer to lead one yourself? Because that's how it happens.

I would strongly disagree that most troops focus on arts and crafts. The Girl Scout Leadership Experience focuses on age appropriate skill-building activities, and building outdoor skills is a big part of that. Our council here in Western Washington owns and operates 6 fantastic camps that are full each summer and used year-round. International travel is also hugely popular with our girls, including visits to international scouting venues and also trips the girls plan themselves and pay for with cookie sales. This year we have girls planning trips to at least 4 continents that I've heard about so far.
The Girl Scout Gold Award is more challenging than the Eagle award.

My sons were in Boy Scouts and older one earned Eagle. We had major problems with their social policies and worked to change those, but did like the outdoor and community service components. The boys had fun.
But I'm a Lifetime member of Girl Scouts and currently a very active volunteer. I appreciate what this organization has to offer but never expected someone else to create it for my kids, I knew I had to be the one to help make it happen with the skill and interest I could bring.